DAlliances
by Bibliotecaria.D
Summary: Rodimus Prime, and two approaches to a relationship.
1. Chapter 1

**[* * * * *]**

**Title: **Implicit Promises

**Warning to Audience: ** Vague robot sex description.

**Show Rating: **PG-13?

**Continuity: **G1, Season 3

**Characters:** Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime, Daniel

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **Comment Party Prompt - _"Rodimus Prime, Daniel: grown up stuff."_

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><p>Optimus Prime had been unreachable. Daniel's first memories of all the Autobots were humongous shiny walls of bright colors that he'd wanted so badly to touch, but somehow, Optimus had never been among those vague memories. All the other Autobots, Daniel had reached sticky-fingered hands out to. Greedy, grasping hands under a beaming, toothless smile, completely fearless when facing beings who wouldn't even notice if they stepped on him, and even the most stand-offish Autobot had been charmed by the blatant eagerness shown by Spike's new little human.<p>

Sideswipe had knelt down at Carly's side to get a closer look and offered the infant a finger. Daniel had promptly grabbed it and tried to stuff the oversized metal digit in his mouth to gum on, and Sideswipe's smile had softened as if the frontliner were lost in long-gone memories of other first meetings. "He's staying with us, yeah?" he'd joked, and behind him, Sunstreaker had seemed offended by the idea of a filthy human bitlet staying in Autobot City near him. He'd stiffened into a metal statue and narrowed his optics down at them all as if imagining drool seeping into unmentionable areas.

A moment later, Carly had confided to Spike, she'd felt terrible for even thinking that as Sunstreaker smacked Sideswipe upside the helm. "You don't take children away from their parents!"

"Why not?" Sideswipe had asked, eminently reasonable. "Humans do it for cats."

"Humans aren't pets!"

"That seems like a weird distinction to make - owww~w, okay, okay, no adopting the kitten-human!"

"**Baby**, you cretin!" Sunstreaker had hauled the red frontline up by one sensor horn and pushed him down the hall. For all the yellow Lamborgini's apparent fury on humanity's behalf, the motion had been as practiced as a rancher herding cattle.

And, like a particularly rebellious cow, Sideswipe had kept trying to get around the barrier of Sunstreaker's interference to get back to meeting that fascinatingly unafraid and wonderfully affectionate baby. "Alright, so it's a — "

_*clang!*_ "**He.** Seriously, do you even have manners?"

She'd been afraid the noise would frighten Daniel, but her son had watched Sunstreaker chivvy Sideswipe away with delight. It didn't matter how alien their behavior or loud the Autobots were; Daniel just wasn't afraid. Spike had introduced Ratchet to his son while the medic had Wheeljack's leg on the floor and was working on one arm, which had resulted in a briefly startling moment when the medic waved hello with three hands. The engineer had flashed his headfins at the baby, who hadn't even been phased by the lightshow. Jazz had tried to find Daniel's favorite music in one prolonged, noisy test, and Daniel had met the cacophony with high-pitched shrieks of glee. Jazz helpfully gave him a piston pin and a dented armor plate to try and bang a rhythm on for the rest of the day, an act which had done nothing to endear the Autobot to Daniel's parents. Grimlock had actually transformed to meet the tiny human baby, tyrannosaurus head dipping its chin all the way to the floor until the closest Autobots began to look — just a bit — nervous. Daniel had reached out with his sticky hands and slapped the palms against Grimlock's nose like a strange hybrid of petting and gleeful, over-excited hello. The notoriously temperamental Dinobot had hesitated before gravely and ever-so-gently nudging a greeting back.

"I can't believe that worked," Ratchet had murmured to Wheeljack.

"I don't think anyone's ever tried it," Wheeljack had said back.

Daniel didn't remember most of those first meetings, although the Autobots treasured them. Humans had fuzzy memories early on. There was one memory that stood out amidst all the loud sounds and bright colors those first years among the Autobots: meeting Optimus Prime. Instead of blur, the Autobot leader had a crisp-edged scene preserved among those early memories. The deep voice said words that were nothing but bass rumble to a small child, but the sheen of glass windshields remained clear. His father had always pointed Optimus Prime out to him as the ultimate Good Guy, but even as a tiny tot, Daniel had stuck his fist in his mouth and sucked instead of trying to speak as the gargantuan Autobot kindly greeted him. His eyes had been awestruck and wide as he took in the towering leader of the Autobots, and he never reached out for a hug, a hello, or even just to touch all those appealingly brilliant colors.

Age never changed that. When one's adored-but-busy parents pointed out his own hero, a child had no choice but to worship that hero from afar. Said hero was, in a sadly similar way to his parents, adored but busy. His parents loved Daniel, but they owed their world and their friends much of their time. Optimus Prime had even more demands on his time. There was love, but it was distant, and from a distance, he loved them back. He didn't know why the distance was there, but it was grown-up stuff. He was too little to know yet.

That was the way of the world. He grew up knowing that.

Hot Rod was close. There wasn't distance there. Hot Rod wasn't the adored hero or busy parents, and he was the one to go to with anything and everything. Daniel knew this was the unwavering faith of a toddler raised among legions of primary-colored robots. Optimus Prime was huge and brightly colored, and in the midst of Daniel's forlorn search for an attainable father figure, a freshly painted soldier had almost stepped on him.

The newly transferred Hot Rod had nearly had vapors at his abrupt introduction to the tiniest of humans allowed into Autobot City. The toddler just stood there looking up at him, unafraid and interested, one fist holding a tattered old nursery blanket that trailed on the floor. Hot Rod had leaned against the nearest wall and wheezed, intakes stuttering as he recovered from the after-effects of watching his career and the Earth-Autobot alliance collapse in front of his mind's eye. When he felt steady enough to walk, he'd gamely picked up Daniel, correctly deducing that no one this small should be allowed to wander alone in a potentially dangerous world. New to Earth as Hot Rod — and also, Daniel — was, everything was potentially dangerous. It was also a potential source of entertainment and wonder.

It would be an abiding bond between them: protection and exploration.

Daniel had gone looking for a father and a hero but unintentionally found a friend. Returned to his parents, he toddled off again in search of the wonderfully shiny and not-so-looming Autobot who, helplessly amused by the baby clinging to his thumb and/or helm, kept returning him. The cycle continued until, not unlike that Christmas present Aunt Bertha gave Carly every year, tolerance and affection built up and the return attempts turned into permanent keeping.

"Well, we got to keep him," Sideswipe had said, watching Hot Rod chase his surprisingly agile charge among the forest of table legs in the common room. Gears and Ultra Magnus didn't even seem to notice when Daniel darted, giggling like only a hyperactive two-year-old could, across their feet. Both Autobots shifted out of the way as Hot Rod scrambled across the floor in pursuit, however. "Think we should get him a collar?"

Bluestreaker took his turn smacking the tactless frontliner upside the helm.

It should be noted that the suggestion of a leash got a moment's consideration.

So to the Autobots went the small assorted trials of tending a growing child. Daniel teethed on Sunstreaker's synthetic leather seats, drew in crayon on Track's dashboard, listened to Kup's bedtime stories, and drove Red Alert and Metroxplex half up the wall checking when he insisted Ravage was hiding under his bed. The Dinobots could often be seen gathered into a herd, the fondly exasperated looks common to half the base on their faces as they were directed through the halls by an imperious toddler whose favorite book was _Dinotopia._ Mirage, Jazz, and Hound spent their few minutes of free time playing hide-and-go-seek with him as if a child could ever realistically catch them if they weren't letting him. Blaster was nap-time supervisor, letting the constant babble of a busy city wash through the communication tower like a sea of soothing sound as the growing boy slept on a blanket on his lap, one hand loosely curled under his chin and soft, baby-toothed mouth drooping open in total, trusting relaxation. These Autobots gathered the moments with him like precious seconds they never wanted to forget, even the obnoxious pink paint-handprint ones.

Humans lived such short lives. They aged so quickly, and then one day they were gone, leaving nothing to hold onto but the memories. Nonetheless, those memories were worth all the pain of loss that accompanied them. The Autobots reached for Daniel as eagerly as the tiny tot grasped at them. Sparkplug Witwicky's grandson never lacked for babysitters, but they were only temporary and they knew it. Once Hot Rod was off shift, Autobot City's tiny mascot would be taken away without a glance back.

Fathers and heroes were great, but friends had more in common. Daniel wouldn't dare ask Optimus Prime question, and his father and mother were too busy (although it saddened his parents greatly when they realized he thought so) to ask. So to the Autobots went the growing pains, and to Hot Rod went the incessant questions of the Terrible Twos, and then the Tripled Threes, and onward through the various charmingly-named and pain-in-the-aft childhood years.

They weren't always inane _Why? Whyzat? Whynot? Butwhy?_ questions common to all curious children, however. When Daniel had only been five years old, he'd gone to Hot Rod with a question. The determined, tiny human patted the much larger Autobot on the foot, and Hot Rod bent closer to pay resigned, pleased attention to whatever his charge wanted to say.

"Sp'nger an' Arcee-cee," Daniel was still getting the hang of this English thing, which occasionally prompted quick get-aways in Hot Rod's altmode when Ratchet overheard the kid speak and wanted to examine him for software errors, "got their ches's open an' there's pretwy fi'eworks. Wanna try!"

Hot Rod gaped. He barely noticed Daniel's chubby hands making grabby motions up at his chest, urging him to open the plating and get on with the pretty firework show. The kid was apparently under the impression that humans could open their chests like Autobots, and they'd press their opened chests together, and _dear holy Primus on a pogo stick_ that just wasn't going to happen. The Autobots had a nice, polite download available for troops new from Cybertron, spelling out for them what the rating system on movies meant for human maturity levels and therefore what was culturally acceptable for public display. Spark interfacing, so far as Hot Rod knew, had been rated around the same level as NC-17 pornography. Springer and Arcee had just exposed Daniel to _pornography_.

He managed a semi-coherent answer to his young friend — something about _Fireworks like that are dangerous for humans, Daniel. We'll have to wait until you grow up to, uh, let you try that with me. _- while shrieking over the communication systems like a scandalized maiden aunt. Springer and Arcee responded in mortified splutters, Ironhide roared with embarrassed laughter, Bumblebee swore dire vengeance, and there was stunned, discomfited silence from the rest of the Autobots. Prime immediately laid a 15-year black-out mandate over the entire city that if their most valued human friend ever, _ever_ brought up what he'd mistakenly seen, the Autobots would collectively change the subject or lie like a rug about Springer and Arcee's completely innocent and horribly dangerous love of fireworks and how all the Autobots had been banned from ever doing it again because of some terrible accident and therefore Daniel would never see it again oh no how sad moving on now.

While that particular drama had been hashing out over Autobot City's communication network, Prowl fell over himself apologizing to Daniel's parents. They were doing their own maidenly shrieking after the Second in Command, cringing in a way he never did in combat, awkwardly explained the situation. This involved delving into what had been successfully kept from human eyes and minds for years: the Cybertronian equivalent of sexual activity. Fortunately for Earth-Autobot relations, the Witwicky's had a lifetime tolerance to strange accidents built up. Also, Hot Rod's fiercely indignant rage on the behalf of their only child had nearly redeemed the enormous blunder.

Nearly. If not for Daniel's new fondness for Springer and Arcee, his parents would have alienated him from them by sheer glare power. But like all human children, he'd fixated on them as new friends because, in his eyes, they had a shiny thing and might someday share. He really had loved that firework show. Arcee and Springer, on the other side of the equation, felt that they owed Daniel for his inadvertent, ah, 'exposure.' They hung out more often with Hot Rod and his charge, and what began as guilt steadied into friendship easily. A friendship that hitched occasionally with embarrassment whenever the firework show question came up, but friendship.

They had all been younger, if only incrementally by Cybertronian standards, when that had all happened. The 15-year mandate had stood through the destruction of Autobot City and Optimus Prime's death. If anything, it'd actually been reinforced by Hot Rod becoming Rodimus Prime. The Matrix, at least, could be explained. One did not use the Autobot Matrix of Leadership just to give a light show, no matter how dear the human who asked. The other Autobots just loudly talked about the weather when asked why they wouldn't give Daniel a firework show.

The tiny toddler had grown up, of course, and on the way learned that humans couldn't open their chests the way Autobots could. He sometimes, a little sadly and never noticing any nearby Autobots' uncomfortable flinch, mentioned how he often wished they could do that together. Over time and frequent exposure, Rodimus Prime had controlled his slight reaction to the wish. The more time went on, in fact, the more he sometimes, quietly, just to Daniel, replied that he wished it, too.

_But humans don't have sparks,_ he couldn't explain. And they couldn't open their chests to access them, anyway. It was just how the universe worked. "That's the way of the world," Daniel sometimes said, too, and Rodimus Prime couldn't help but agree.

"Grown up stuff, kiddos," Daniel said when the elementary school tours came through the new Autobot City, and he smiled as the little children all whined that they wanted to sit in on intergalactic meetings or go into the hangar bay or follow an injured 'bot into Medbay. "That's the way of the world."

"You grow up, and you grow up knowing there's grown up stuff to be told," Daniel told him on a day long gone, and he'd been smiling, a tiny bit hopeful but mostly just lopsidedly acknowledging what hadn't been told.

Rodimus Prime looked down at him, not so far down as way back then, and realized with a hiccup like an electric shock that he'd grown up knowing. Not anything specific, at least so every Autobot on Earth and his own parents hoped, but knowing there were grown up things to be told. Silence had been imposed a little too late to fully conceal there was something to be hidden. _"We'll have to wait until you grow up_…"

Daniel had waited, and waited still. Wistfully, watchfully, waiting for his friend like open hands grasping distant things he didn't know he couldn't have. At least, not the fireworks. Daniel had always loved and continually looked for fireworks between them, but Hot Rod had never opened his chest plates for him.

Rodimus Prime didn't need to. Daniel had held his spark for years.


	2. No Pain, No Peace

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**Title: **No Pain, No Peace

**Warning: ** Suggestion of love conquering all, sado-masochism style. Serious subjects and a distinct lack of taking them seriously.

**Rating: **G

**Continuity: **G1, Season 3

**Characters:** First Aid, Rodimus Prime, Autobot ensemble

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **Comment Party Prompt - _"Rodimus Prime/Galvatron: love hurts."_

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><p>"Wait, wait. Go back. What exactly are you saying?" Rodimus Prime asked, hesitating over the words as if he didn't really want to know.<p>

First Aid missed Prowl at that moment. The dead Autobot SiC had been able to take in the facts without repeating words nobody wanted to dwell on, and his plans had whirred onward in precise — if somewhat ruthless - calculations from the initial briefing through later, more detailed reports. Facts were information, and Prowl had processed them. Rodimus Prime, although he was admirable in many ways, had a tendency to blank out entire minutes of conversations if the content were boring and/or startling. Plus, he didn't do methodological planning so much as emotional fixation and vast, intuitive leaps.

As Autobot City's Chief Medical Officer launched into a recap of his words, his wistful longing for Prowl's cool logic evaporated. Prowl really wouldn't have been much use against Galvatron, after all. Galvatron had very little method to his madness. Maybe the Matrix had known what it was about, choosing Hot Rod as Galvatron's Autobot foil.

"Unicron reformatting seemed chaotic," First Aid explained, bringing up a cut-away scan of Galvatron on the wall screen, "but it didn't make sense to create a warrior with no sense to his systems. It's taken me months since the Constructicons' medical scanfiles were hacked, but I think I've managed to map out the reasoning behind his construction." His visor dipped in the middle in his version of a mild frown. "I had to resort to Hook and Scrapper's notes to support my theory, although Bonecrusher's contributions apparently were the main reason for their own exploration of the Unicronians' designs. We've basically been fighting a complete unknown."

"Okay." Rodimus Prime gave the rest of the briefing group a slightly blank look, which they returned. Perhaps First Aid's memory of Prowl was bathed in the light of nostalgia; nobody else seemed to be processing the facts, either. "Okay. I'm following you so far. We always knew Unicron made Galvatron weird, and then there was the whole crazier than a batty squirrel thing. Can't predict crazy," the Prime added a bit wryly, and the Autobots chuckled. The idea of Galvatron being unknown didn't surprise anyone, as they'd assumed essential bits of his mind had melted into insanity on Charr.

First Aid nodded, but then he shook his head after a pause. "Yes, and no." He zoomed in on the cut-away, focusing on just one arm until it filled the whole wall. The others looked slightly intimidated by the complicated diagram, or possibly because it was Galvatron's cannon arm. "We've been assuming something we shouldn't: that eventually the Decepticons would see there was no point to the war anymore. But look at this." A pointer on the screen opened another window and blew up the scan even further while they looked on obediently. The helpless light of incomprehension filled their optics, and First Aid dug for words to explain this to them. "He's built on a separate set of premises. We're built for multiple functions and transformations. We adapt. It's who and what we are, dating back to the days when a root mode had transformable **parts**, even if our bodies didn't completely shift. We were never meant to stay static, in one form or even one alternate mode. Stay in one alternate mode too long, and it integrates into your root mode and primary functions."

Rodimus Prime had a polite, faintly desperate smile plastered on his face. The other Autobots were glancing at each other. They understood that First Aid was getting worked up and more than a little despairing over Galvatron's design, but not one of them understood _why_.

He pointed at his own head and put it as bluntly as he could. "Alternate transformations, however temporarily we scan and transform into them, tamper with our minds. Most of the time, that's a good thing. We adapt to our surroundings, and the addition of altmode information into our programming speeds reaction time. Often, it's a key method for understanding new situations. If we don't continue to change, however, that additional information gets saved to archival data. Keep the archival files tagged without updating long enough, and they'll be permanently integrated into our core programming as-is. That altmode is no longer an altmode; it's another rootmode. In order to change transformations again, you'd actually have to be rebuilt to add on another alternate form."

The smallest hint of understanding began to dawn across the table. Wonder and a tiny wave of fear filled their faces, along with questions the other Autobots couldn't quite put into words yet. First Aid nodded.

"Galvatron has no ability to change. Ever. Look at his arm." He gestured at the cut-away windows on the screen, and this time everyone looked with intense interest. "There is no altmode structure. It's all rootmode. It's incorporated into his cannon form, right down to the smallest circulatory system. We've been fighting someone we mistakenly thought could comprehend more than a life of war, when he's not capable of knowing anything else."

That took a moment to fully run through to the conclusion he needed them to reach. "You're saying that Galvatron is built for war," Rodimus Prime said, not hesitating but reluctant. "That's not new. I mean, he's a warrior — "

"No, I'm not saying he's a warbuild. A lot of the Autobots rebuilt during the war are now warbuilds. I mean that there's an inherent disassociation between living and fighting that Unicron designed at the component level into his heralds. Galvatron's not a warbuild, because that implies a dichotomy of thought behind his build where the idea of war and not-war exists. The way he's built, he **is** war." First Aid made a helpless motion with his hand. Understanding this had shaken the Constructicons to the point where, he suspected, they'd _let_ the Autobots hack their files. Coming to understand this himself had left him trembling in the arms of his fellow Protectobots.

There was civil war, and then there was destroying the universe because Unicron had left no other option. What kind of twisted universe had the Chaos Bringer wanted to create? A universe where peace was never a possibility; where creation didn't exist, only destruction. A universe where hate and rage couldn't relent, indeed couldn't be identified, because there was no other emotional state to contrast them to. Chaos, panic, and the consumption of everything until the only thing left in the universe was the most vicious survivor, and then First Aid could only imagine how someone with this kind of warped body and mind would turn on himself.

"Warbuilds can be given new altmodes and readapted to life without war. Galvatron can't even think about that. I don't mean he won't," First Aid looked to the cut-away, "I mean he physically **can't**. Even his neurological pathways inhibit it."

There was silence at the table. The other Autobots were gazing with wide optics at an abomination they'd never fully seen. Rodimus Prime looked more thoughtful, but there was a pinched stress line by his mouth that First Aid wished he could somehow soothe. There was nothing like handing his Prime an impossible problem to ruin his month.

"You know what the worst part is?" the CMO blurted at random, unable to stay quiet in the face of the Prime's sad, strained look. "The way his head's been wired, he can never _feel_ like us. It would hurt him. Pleasure registers as near agony. I ran several models based on his neurological circuitry, and emotional attachments have to cause him as much pain as a wound. Things like friendship or love would bodily punish him." The Chaos Bringer's heralds lived lives of nothing but burning hate, unless they equated getting hurt with affection.

Which might explain the way Galvatron reacted to Cyclonus, come to think of it, at least if there were anything besides mutual loathing between the two Unicronians. It wouldn't surprise First Aid at this point if Galvatron were a sadomasochist. It would the only way he could think of for a Cybertronian to adapt to what Unicron had done to him. If there were anything of a native Cybertronian left in the Unicronian, anyway.

First Aid rebooted his visor. Then he did it again. Rodimus Prime was _smiling?_

"Well, the humans always say that love hurts," the Autobot leader murmured, and the whole table was looking askance by now. He stood abruptly. "Excuse me, folks, I've gotta hit up the armory and — First Aid, I'm going to need to borrow a few tools if you don't mind heading to Medbay ASAP to pack for me. I'll make a list."

The Prime surged out of the briefing room like a racer at the gate, caught up in one of his impetuous intuitive leaps. By now, the other Autobots knew the signs better than the old command crew had known the oncoming signs of one of Optimus Prime's famous speeches. They also knew better than to try and shift Rodimus Prime's fixated attention, as his hunches were almost forces of nature in his strength of cause. The whole room just scrambled to catch up, leaping for the orders he tossed in his wake like outfielders for the ball.

First Aid jogged toward Medbay himself, shaking his head a bit at the boomerang swing from bad news to optimism. Yeah, some days he missed Prowl's level head. He missed the plans that made sense going in. With Rodimus Prime, things only made sense looking back at how it played out. But this wasn't Optimus Prime versus Megatron. This was Rodimus Prime versus Galvatron. This was a whole new playing field, where Unicron had rewritten the rules.

Fortunately, everyone remembered that Hot Rod had never learned to play by the rules, much less respect whoever made them. Becoming Prime hadn't changed that much.

Maybe the Matrix had known what it was about.


	3. A Peace of Pain

Rodimus Prime, and two approaches to a relationship.

_Galvatron/Rodimus - Peace talks going awry...in a sexy way. ON THE TABLE._

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><p><strong>[* * * * *]<strong>

**Title: **A Peace of Pain

**Warning: ** Violence, robot sex, sado-masochism

**Rating: **NC-17 to be safe?

**Continuity: **G1, Season 3

**Characters:** Cyclonus, Scourge, Ultra Magnus, Rodimus Prime, Galvatron, Swindle, First Aid

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **Comment Party Prompt - Galvatron/Rodimus - Peace talks going awry...in a sexy way. ON THE TABLE.

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><p>Cyclonus wasn't sure he liked how the day was going. Week, really, or even the entire month if he thought about it. Which he tried not to, because then he'd have to think about why he didn't like it, and that was a tangled mess in a ticking box even a specialized bomb squad would sprint away from.<p>

Put it this way: some days, asking Galvatron _"How are you?"_ could be a fatal offence. Cyclonus wasn't quite to that point yet, but just in case? The Sweeps weren't asking.

Why, precisely, was the day going…not badly, but not in a way that Cyclonus would prefer? There were the peace talks, for one thing. Peace talks with Autobots, as if the day weren't surreal enough.

They had assembled on a theoretically-neutral planet famous for its rental halls (Available for any occasion! Insurance policies mandatory) and heavy orbital defense platforms. Also for its refreshment centers, which was why the Predacons had been confined to Chaar for the duration of this meeting. That decision had been filed in the category _Back Up In Case of Autobot Trap_, subdirectory _Not Bloody Likely_, cross-directed to the financial files under _We're Decepticons, Neither Stupid Nor Made of Money._ Hun-Grr had still been sulking — and drooling over the menu — when the others left.

Red Alert had cheerfully informed Soundwave that they had bought the extended contract on their rented meeting place, guaranteeing that if ("When," half the Decepticons had absent-mindedly said. The other half just looked resigned) Lord Galvatron blew up the first hall, they could immediately reconvene in a different hall. The construction business was a booming one on this planet. The Constructicons had drafted Swindle to check on whether the locals were interested in outsourcing.

So, yes, there had been explosions and yelling and screaming and, in the meantime, Cyclonus and Ultra Magnus actually met in the second hall. Rodimus Prime and Lord Galvatron finished their meet-n-greet pleasantries in the rubble of the first while the Decepticons stood around laying bets on the winner. Ultra Magnus looked insufferably smug as the other Autobots took the opportunity to nab the best seats at the peace table. Cyclonus fumed. He glared when Scourge guiltily wandered in, late-to-the-party backup. The Hunter had to evict some yellow minibot from a seat, as even the seats beside Cyclonus had been claimed by Autobots while the Decepticons were distracted by the show. Once the Hunter sat down, chairs shifted subtly until the two Decepticons were isolated even at a crowded table. By the time Soundwave finally came in (He'd been detained by an annoyingly efficient insurance drone with an alarming number of arms, each holding a separate datapad form that needed approximately 64 dotted lines filled out post-haste. Scourge had just been outside getting the odds and laying his money), it was quite obvious that the meeting had become two Unicronians against an entire table of peace-seeking Autobots.

Even odds, admittedly, but it was the principle of the thing. Cyclonus glared at Soundwave, too, but most of his ire remained directed at Scourge. The Hunter avoided meeting his optics, trying not to look chastised in front of the Autobots. One did not abandon one's commander to place bets.

Well, not without cutting him in on the pot, anyway.

Cyclonus didn't like the situation. Not one bit. He didn't really _get_ this 'peace' concept. He understood what a cease-fire was, because they were temporary agreements usually for survival or trickery or both. Pauses in the battle to regroup, more than anything. Peace was…different, and Cyclonus knew that. He understood that he didn't understand what that difference truly was, and that was as far as his understanding went.

As it had been explained to him, peace seemed to be a long-term thing. The difference was more than the length of time, however. It also had to do with intent. The intent of a cease-fire was to deal with immediate, pressing issues and then return to fighting. Peace seemed to involve cooperation: construction, not destruction, and establishing instead of tearing down. Just the suggestion of peace had sparked wildfire conversation and research among the other Decepticons, and it seemed to involve them finding interests to pursue other than war.

Those words had all made sense individually, and then Swindle had actually said them in a sentence. They'd become very confusing at that point.

"Other interests," Cyclonus had said cautiously, breaking the foreign sentence down into chunks he thought he could handle. "Such as…weapons dealing?" Weapons dealing was an obvious part of war. Cyclonus understood that. Supply and demand: Galvatron demanded and Cyclonus supplied, usually via the Constructicons or Swindle. Swindle had hesitated to agree, and Cyclonus had made another connection that made logical sense. "Mercenary work," he'd suggested, and while it'd rested uneasily in his mind, there'd also been a sense of relief as he understood. The Decepticons could agree to a long-term cease-fire with the Autobots and turn their attention to conquering the rest of the universe!

Except it seemed that Cyclonus hadn't guessed correctly. "Not exactly," Swindle had drawn out slowly. "You know I sell things other than weapons, right?"

The businessmech had seemed genuinely curious of his answer, and Cyclonus had nodded with a wariness he usually only felt when Rodimus Prime smirked that peculiarly devious smirk at him across a battlefield. Acknowledging that look never led anywhere good, such as when it resulted in the Prime smacking Lord Galvatron on the aft before sprinting off trailing laughter and a murderous Decepticon tyrant. That had been one of the Decepticons' least successful raids on Earth, as Cyclonus recalled. It'd been hard for them to fight Autobots when their glorious but single-minded leader was chasing a hooting Winnebago around in dizzy circles.

"You sell frippery to the rank and file," Cyclonus had said, pushing down the wariness. He'd inspected Swindle's wares before. Useless bits and pieces meant for entertainment, some memorabilia of Cybertron, and assorted random things like bird feed and an oxygen synthesizer for Blitzwing's parrot (Cyclonus hated that thing. He'd confiscated the supplies in hopes of it starving or dying for lack of air, but then the triplechanger turned traitor. Sweeps #7 and 8 had adopted the fragging featherduster and taken the supplies back, and now Cyclonus was stuck with hearing it squawk football plays down the hall for the next 40 years).

"But do you know why they buy it?" Swindle had interrupted his parrot-loathing thoughts, and for a moment Cyclonus had been mildly irritated by the inane question.

Irritation had melted into a vast puzzlement the longer he'd thought on the question. After a full minute of thought, Cyclonus had turned widened optics on the Jeep as ragged shafts of pain speared from head to wings. The sourceless pain had nearly sent him into full-blown panic — with accompanying rage, of course — but Swindle hadn't appeared surprised when the Decepticon second-in-command arched and cut off a yelp.

"Yeah, that's about what I thought," the businessmech had said instead. "Look, you're not, er, **like** the rest of us." An awkward pause had happened, as it always did when the command trine's origins were touched on. Nobody cared if a Sweep overheard somebody grousing about Unicron, but Galvatron could sometimes be driven into furious rages just by somebody implying the name, much less anybody actually _saying_ it.

Swindle had coughed his intakes clear unnecessarily and rushed on, "We do things other than fight. The Constructicons like to build things that don't get destroyed or destroy things. Blast Off does narration for educational broadcasts. Vortex made a Jerry Springer shrine back on Earth, and now he says he wants to start a galactic talk show. Astrotrain is, well, uh, sick of fighting in general. I think he wants to travel for a while." Another hesitation there, because Astrotrain and Blitzwing had been war-buddies for ages, and Blitzwing's exile hadn't made Astrotrain happy _at all._

"My point," Swindle had said, peering at Cyclonus as if doubting the Unicronian was following his words, "is that if the war stops, we all have things we'd like to do. We have things we **can** do. We don't have to fight, you know?"

No, he really didn't.

The idea of not fighting gave Cyclonus a full-body ache, like a headache of incomprehension that pulsed in his joints and under his armor. Scourge had confessed to a similar unplaceable pain. Various Sweeps had reported to medbay immediately upon the first hint of these peace talks actually happening, in fact. The Constructicons had kicked them out right away and gone straight into hiding. When Cyclonus had pried them out from the under the assorted objects they'd been hiding under (Sinnertwin had been terribly surprised to find he'd been sitting on Bonecrusher), they had reluctantly admitted that they did indeed know why the Unicronians were hurting. They'd also admitted that there wasn't a thing they could do about it.

Scourge had been foolish enough to ask why. To be fair, Scourge had a comparatively low pain tolerance. Cyclonus couldn't blame him — much — for wanting to know the reason for the itching, crawling pain. The Sweeps were blatant cowards when it came to facing up to torture and death, but Scourge had the bonus intelligence factor most of the Sweeps seemed to lack (Sweeps #3, 6, and 9 seemed smart enough. Three seemed to be a key number among the Unicronians.). Not only did he know it was going to hurt, but he often saw it coming. What Cyclonus thought him foolish for was _wanting_ to see it coming. That was like looking up while the axe fell.

It had taken seven tries at one Constructicon per explanation and four on the last one, plus colored flow charts and a rubber squeeze toy stolen from the Predacons that vaguely resembled Unicron's planet-mode, but Cyclonus and Scourge had eventually understood. Not that understanding had been helpful in understanding the situation in any way.

What they'd understood was that they _couldn't_ understand. Which was, in a contradictive way, actually helpful. It had been something of a relief to give up trying to wrap their minds around something because they were physically and mentally incapable of doing so. At the same time, that made the situation even more infuriating. Even Scourge had gotten a stubborn set to his jaw when the squeeze toy wheezed out its final emphasis to the conversation.

Finding out that they'd been built according to Unicron's specifications wasn't news. That didn't upset Scourge or Cyclonus. They had gotten through that part of the Constructicons' presentation with no problems, because it wasn't like they were ignorant of their origins. Unicronians were made by Unicron, duh. Even Sweep #5 knew that, and he walked into closed doors regularly. They'd been designed by the chaos god of destruction. They'd been created strong, powerful, and probably a little mad compared to normal Decepticons.

What had made Scourge and Cyclonus look funky at each other was the idea that they'd been built to be limited. This was what took so long to explain, and they'd stood around outside the repairbay looking forlorn and befuddled after the Constructicons demanded they get out, post-explanation. It'd taken too long, but it'd finally been hammered into their heads via implacably logical flow charts. The Unicronians had always thought of themselves as more…free…than the other Decepticons. They had no attachment to Cybertron. They had more firepower and ruthlessness to spare. To find that they'd been deceived all along by their own bodies shook them to the core. Shackles and chains of pain, laced through their bodies and holding them to Unicron's will, even after death.

_That_, they could understand. _That_ upset them.

If by 'upset,' one meant 'righteously bloody well pissed-off at the universe in general and Unicron in specific.'

It explained a lot of things they'd taken for granted all their lives, like how the other Decepticons talked with nostalgia about people or planets long gone. Like how they had friends, or at least companions, to do nothing with. Relaxation, enjoyment of company, hobbies, non-violent competition; all things that the Unicronians had watched with varying degrees of bafflement.

On Hook's advice, Scourge had submitted to light medical statis; higher functions suspended, but body still online. Under Cyclonus' close supervision, the Construction had administered a high-dosage fragment stimulant. It was a temporary energy booster with a nanite additive meant to cross the tank/systems barrier and introduce a virus to the mind while the body was scrambled by the sudden energy influx. It was normally only used to start interrogations, since the main purpose of the virus was to disorganize Autobots who'd put their CPUs under lockdown. In this case, Hook had introduced a separation between mind and body by putting Scourge's mind into statis, then forcing it back up via the virus while his body kicked into overdrive on its own.

For at least a klick, Scourge's mind and body had been unable to breech the disconnect. He'd peered up at them blearily afterward. "Is that normal?" he'd asked Hook, slurring the words slightly. "Feeling like that?"

The surgeon had looked down at him as if studying an interesting specimen. "Pain is not normal, no. Something hurting is generally a sign of a problem, in fact." He'd turned to Cylonus next. "Do you wish to try as well?"

Cyclonus had looked at the faintly wistful look on Scourge's face and immediately demurred. It seemed to be one of those situations where he'd be better off not knowing what he was missing. He was aware that serving Lord Galvatron occasionally pained him more in some circumstance than in others, but he'd rather not know how much it wasn't supposed to hurt. Considering Scourge's moping for the next few days, it appeared that ignorance was — well, not bliss, but at least more tolerable than knowledge.

Understanding that being in pain was going against Unicron's leash made said pain easier to bear. Cyclonus and Scourge — especially Scourge - didn't like it, but they understood as best they were able. Explaining it to Lord Galvatron had been a different matter altogether. The Constructicons refused outright. Trying to find out what they liked in order to bribe them had only rubbed in just how much Cyclonus didn't understand the other Decepticons.

Fortunately, Rodimus Prime seemed to have taken the burden of explaining things onto himself. Hence peace talks and explosions, all in the same day. At the same time, even. It was a little comforting, to be honest. Cyclonus could get behind a fight. He didn't get the concept of peace (No…war? What was there, if not war? What was _he_, if not meant for warfare?), but he was, above all else, obedient to Lord Galvatron's wishes. Even more so than before, now that he knew it hurt worse because Unicron hadn't wanted his heralds to be loyal. If Lord Galvatron wanted Cyclonus to sit and talk of treaties and boundaries and associated incomprehensible concepts while he himself attempted to beat the ever-living slag out of the Prime, who was Cyclonus to nay-say?

The other Decepticons had looked to him with hope brimming in their optics when Galvatron had decreed the peace talks would happen (Even though his helm had sparked madly, and he'd been seething with smoke and fire from his mouth and chest). Lord Galvatron wished it, and the other Decepticons wanted it badly enough to behave. As much as they ever did, anyway. Cyclonus didn't _like_ it, but he had to concede that it was probably for the best that he didn't. He had put together a rather disturbing picture from the Constructicons' restless, uneasy behavior lately. They had never been comfortable giving the Unicronians medical exams, but discomfort had edged into bomb squad behavior a while back. Cyclonus had the sinking feeling that the Constructicons' inclination toward duck-and-cover coincided with their discovery of Unicron's manipulations.

What would it be like to find out your leaders were so fundamentally different from you that they couldn't understand you? Not _didn't_ understand. Cyclonus didn't understand half of what the Sweeps did on a regular basis, and they were fellow Unicronians. _Couldn't_ understand was different. That meant Cyclonus was physically and mentally different from the other Decepticons to the point where, as Cybertronians, they had more in common with the _Autobots_ than they did with him. It was a thought Cyclonus had to force himself to entertain, and just the effort required to think it put him through torture.

Unicronian likes and dislikes might be cause for much of the internal conflict happening among the Decepticons on Chaar. The time had come to either acknowledge the difference and work around it, or admit that the Unicronians weren't Decepticons at all. And in that direction lay death.

It wasn't that Cyclonus doubted the might and ultimate victory of Lord Galvatron. It was just that, at the same time, he didn't doubt the Decepticons' conniving natures. Right now, the Constructicons were hesitant. Give them enough time and cause, and they would make a decision. So far as Cyclonus knew, the other Decepticons only suspected in a vague and unverified way what the Constructions knew. Swindle's considering looks and probing questions suddenly seemed far more ominous when reflected upon later, and Cyclonus hated the chill of dread. Hated the Constructions. Hated Unicron. Hated them because he had to think about them, had to weigh the implications of being a Unicronian instead of a Decepticon. How would an entire army of seasoned war veterans experienced in espionage, back-stabbing, and outright murder react to knowing that their rightful ruler…wasn't one of them?

This question had led to an obvious answer. This answer had inspired an immediate solution, if an extremely short-term and not very conclusive one. Cyclonus had gotten smashing, crashing, falling-down, unable-to-fly, wastefully, and wonderfully drunk. He'd poured so much high grade energon down his intakes that his HUD stopped bleating alerts and started singing them in Swedish. With what sounded like accordions on back-up.

Then he'd slouched down in a heap against the nearest wall and thought awhile. The pain had been busy sloshing through the epic amounts of high grade in search of his muddled sensors, so while he hadn't exactly been thinking clearly, he hadn't been thinking within the usual restrictions, either.

What he'd eventually pieced together was this:

On a long enough time scale, even a glorious ruler such as Lord Galvatron would let his guard down for a vital moment. Mutiny attempts wouldn't be enough to put his Lord down for the count, but if the Constructicons were also subverted, assassination survival rates dropped dramatically. Cyclonus had clung all the more fiercely to his loyalty after finding out it was against Unicron's will. Where Lord Galvatron went, so went Cyclonus. What Lord Galvatron said was law to Cyclonus. Not so much because Cyclonus was blind to Lord Galvatron's faults, but because of all of the Unicronians, Lord Galvatron had been created the most powerful. The Unicronians bowed to power. Under Lord Galvatron's rule, they were held to his will and leashed to his army. So long as Lord Galvatron lived, the Unicronians had pride of place at his side. They had structure and duties, and until the Constructicons had forced open that door of ignorance in Cyclonus' mind, he hadn't known there were other options.

Hook had probably believed he was showing Scourge what it was like to live without pain. Expanding their minds to look beyond their self-contained unit of the Chaos Bringer's heralds.

But while Scourge had been marveling at the sensation of a pain-free existence, Cyclonus had been taking a peek in the other direction. The easy way, the direction where they chose the less hurtful option every time. To kill the army instead of work with it, to defy Lord Galvatron instead of obey, to fight amongst themselves instead of cooperate. It would be a different life completely, and the Constructicons must not have known what Cyclonus had realized then, or they would have already decided against Lord Galvatron. Hook had tried to show Scourge a life without pain as if it were unattainable, but it was. It so easily could be their lives for the taking.

Take away the Decepticons, take away Cyclonus' twisted fondness for Scourge or his loathsome tolerance for the Sweeps and their blasted parrot, and there were no anchors. Just the endless turning away from pain, the never-ending avoidance of what hurt, and the formless anger would drive him ever-onward toward an end that mocked glorious conquest. There would be nothing left for Lord Galvatron to rule, no _desire_ for his Lord's rule. There would be no future.

Scourge had melted into a spread-winged puddle at his side sometime during Cyclonus' ponderous thoughts, and it would have been so easy to lash out. Cyclonus' first instinct, ever and always, was to destroy. Stifling it as quick as it surged, however, was Lord Galvatron's will that they be his lieutenants, not enemies. They'd looked at each other in mute hatred tamed to a pain that felt like affection, and Scourge had offered him a cube of high grade. Not a peace offering, but a mutual drowning of the urge to kill the world.

"He's got less tactimal — tactisha - tactical sense than a Junkion," the Hunter had said when Cyclonus managed to stop seeing double long enough to actually grab the cube. "He's schizophonic — ph**ren**ic on a good day and stark raving mad the rest-a the time." He took a swig and shrugged. "Which is most of the time, truth be shold. Fold."

"Told," Cyclonus had corrected him idly, mostly just to prove he wasn't so overcharged he couldn't pronounce the word.

Scourge had glowered at him. Or at the wall; it was difficult to tell, as one optic was pointing in the wrong direction. "Whatever. My shopi - point is, he's the worst leader inna lo~ong hishtory of bad leaders. I should…should fly outta here. Leave 'im."

On the one hand, what Scourge had said was utter treason. On the other hand, it was common sense. It would be freedom.

But it wouldn't be, would it? They would still be slaves to Unicron's will. It would only be freeing themselves of the Decepticons and the non-stop pain of obedience to Lord Galvatron's will. Cyclonus had shuddered to even think of it. He could not understand peace, but he understood choice. It was an inherent contradiction that the Unicronians had never been meant to realize: the Chaos Bringer had designed his heralds to be slaves, but he hadn't been able to expunge their free will. Of all of them, Lord Galvatron had chosen to take the brunt of the pain. There was no pain that could stop him, no being that could make him kneel. He chose his own route and refused to acknowledge any paltry agony that would deter his choice.

Lord Galvatron, who was stronger than them all. Lord Galvatron, who could choose peace despite the pain of flouting Unicron's will so completely it would end Cybertron's ancient civil war. Lord Galvatron, the unstable rock in the heralds' chaos-born existence. Where their Lord led, they followed — or they drifted aimlessly with no direction whatsoever.

Free will wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The choices all sucked.

Cyclonus had let his head fall back against the wall. "Yes. You should."

Scourge had, with difficulty, given him a resentful look for his apathetic agreement. Because they both knew that what a Unicronian should do was definitely not what a Decepticon would do, and Lord Galvatron had declared them Decepticons. For all his griping, the Hunter was nothing and no one without a Lord to hunt _for_. Just another outdated slave, still obeying a dead master's commands. Waiting for death to find him, too.

After a while, they'd levered themselves upright again. It had taken a surprising amount of time to achieve that feat, and they'd celebrated by reeling off in search of more high grade. Cyclonus didn't remember how that evening had ended, but he'd found parrot feathers in his cockpit, and Swindle's salesmech smile had seemed less strained when next they spoke. The energon blurred a great many things, bless its pink high grade little cubes, but the Decepticon lieutenants came online two shifts later with aching motherboards and a shared resolution. Two, really. The first was to never drink that much again.

The second was that Lord Galvatron, no matter his faults (and they were many), was at least alive. A crazed, difficult life that burnt their sensors and left them keening with a pain that felt like love, but a life that overwhelmed them, swept them through their craven, broken needs, and sheltered them in his oppressive presence. They would do what had to be done to insure their Lord's position and life.

So. Cyclonus endured the pain, because Unicronians didn't understand surrender. But Decepticons did understand negotiations and a cessation of hostilities, and if Cyclonus was to be a Decepticon as well as a Unicronian, then he must at least go along with the proceedings. It was Lord Galvatron's will that he sit with these wibbling idiot-Autobots to talk peace. It was also, in a backhanded way, for Lord Galvatron's continued glory.

Unicronians understood survival just fine.

He glowered across the peace table at Ultra Magnus (It _hurt_) and reminded himself of that fact. Several times.

"No, we will **not** deactivate our base defenses. Chaar is ours. Leave it be, Autobot." He didn't — quite — snarl at the twitchy Autobot who seemed to coordinating all the security for the event. Cheerful or not, Red Alert had begun to look a bit hunted as the day wore on (They were never getting that security deposit back, but surely the Autobots had budgeted for the amount of destruction peaceful Decepticons could cause?). "Don't venture into our territory, and we won't shoot at you. That seems simple enough for even your pathetic lackeys to process!" Although it required looking at the notes Soundwave had jotted down for him in order to get those words out. Pain pulsed behind his optics as he said them, and the words blurred at the edges through no fault of the datapad. The idea of staying inside drawn borders instead of actively conquering was anathema, but Lord Galvatron's orders. Lord Galvatron's will.

Lord Galvatron's voice getting closer and closer?

Cyclonus automatically rose to face his lord and master, only to leap aside as Lord Galvatron came bodily through the wall. Ultra Magnus sighed wearily even as Red Alert put his head in his hands and two Autobot aides deftly caught the datapads being flung every which way by Rodimus Prime tackling Lord Galvatron into — and then _through_ the peace table. Decepticon heads poked into view in the ragged hole in the wall, hooting encouragement. Cyclonus noted several voices rooting on the Autobot leader instead of their rightful lord; he would have Scourge punish those disloyal Decepticons later. One of the Autobots shouted out a question about the current odds, which set off a flurry of bets while the thrashing, cursing tangle of legs and arms in the middle of the room kept going (Although Cyclonus could have sworn the Prime actually called out "Time?" and been answered by the little medic busily following them. Did they know something he was unaware of?).

"Shall we?" Ultra Magnus offered, gesturing with one hand toward the exit. Cyclonus ignored him in order to stalk out through the hole in the wall. It was closer to the third rental hall now blinking green on his guidance radar (Now available! Please watch your step as construction crews are en route, and have a nice day!). This was two rental halls down. By Unicronian logic, the third one would be the lucky one.

Of course, Sweep #3 had gotten himself flattened by the collapse of the first rental hall, so Unicronian logic didn't always hold true. But what else could one expect of 'logic' spawned from the Chaos Bringer?

They reconvened in the third hall, and maybe it was the charm of three at work (Or Soundwave hovering over his shoulder, inputting and nudging and keeping him on track through the rising tide of _pain_ versus _Lord Galvatron's command_), but they made progress. An astonishing amount of progress, really. If not for the communication officer's discernment of the Autobots' intentions, the peace talks would have stalled out long ago. Cyclonus had faith in his lord, and his lord implicitly trusted Soundwave. It was another concept Cyclonus and Scourge had exchanged baffled looks over, because their programming enforced a limited amount of loyalty to Galvatron, but trusting him as they'd chosen to hurt like a firebomb to the cortex. Trusting Soundwave because Lord Galvatron trusted him caused Cyclonus' head to pound.

He trusted Lord Galvatron. He had to, even though it hurt. And knowing the Unicron was trying to prevent him from holding onto that essential bond to his commander, lord, and master — that just made Cyclonus bull through the pain. It burnt like fire, and he cleansed himself in the flames.

Scourge sat beside him in the negotiations, tense to the point of rigid wings and flexing claws. He looked slightly wild around the optics. Cyclonus refused to dismiss him. He also refused to acknowledge the nervous looks the Autobots were giving his fellow Unicronian (He acknowledged the ones sent at him. It was only polite). Either Scourge would be strong enough to survive the pain and bow to Lord Galvatron's will, or Cyclonus would _make_ him. Failure was not an option.

"I think," Ultra Magnus said carefully, "we're ready for a break. As far as an initial draft goes, this is ground-breaking. Now we need to pass it by our respective leaders," Scourge flinched, and everyone found something fascinating to look at that wasn't him, "get their approval and signatures, and bring any changes back to the table. Agreed?"

The words came out like individual shards of diamonds, scraping his vocalizer raw in their passage. "Agreed. Soundwave, request Lord Galvatron's illustrious presence." He couldn't glance around the room to see what other Decepticon he could send, because if his concentration broke, he might just lose control and attack the Autobot second-in-command. He couldn't risk sending Scourge, either. Letting the Hunter out of his sight right now would only be a bad idea.

"Lord Galvatron, approaching." Soundwave prudently vacated his spot at Cyclonus' back. The other Decepticons (They'd eventually lost interest in the fight and come to watch the peace proceedings with the wide-opticked wonder of those seeing history unfold — or a trainwreck in slow motion) scrambled to follow. Ultra Magnus took his cue and rose, taking his copy of the treaty draft with him. Cyclonus just swiveled his chair around.

When Lord Galvatron came crashing through the wall this time, they were ready. In fact, they were practically waiting, it was so calm in the room. Rodimus Prime seemed to take that in with one glance, and then he had Lord Galvatron pinned to the table. Not through it, this time, which was kind of an improvement. They needed that table to sign things on, after all.

"Lord Galvatron, if you could spare a moment…"

"Graaaaar! Cyclonus, you **fool!** I've no time for your blathering!" Lord Galvatron had the Prime by the hip joints, or maybe Rodimus had straddled him for strategic purposes. The warlord didn't seem to be able to pry him off, anyway.

"Scapel!" the Prime called, fierce and grinning, and the little medic that belonged to the unpleasantly _nice_ gestalt darted forward. A quick slap of their hands, and the Autobot leader was suddenly armed with a glowing laser scapel. It arched down, aiming for Lord Galvatron's shoulder. Cyclonus jerked to his feet, an indignant cry —

dying on his lips as his lord surged up to meet the descending tool. "Is that all you've got, Prime?"

"Net!"

"HA!"

"Duct tape!—not that kind. The pink Hello Kitty stuff, First Aid!"

"This won't hold me for long! I will break free, and no measly Autobot tricks will work twice!"

"Oops?"

"**Gwaaarr**PRIME!"

"Roddy, I know you're busy, but we've got the first draft down." Ultra Magnus snagged his chair and dragged it over so he could sit down. The other Autobots were jockeying with the Decepticons in the room for good spots to lean against the wall. "We need signatures."

"Hold on, hold — ow! — on," Rodimus Prime muttered, then suddenly dodged a fist to swoop down and _bite_ Galvatron in the side of the neck. Pink energon erupted and flowed onto the table. The Decepticon leader went abruptly still, optics flickering, and the Prime took the opportunity to ram one knee between purple thighs. The new position didn't quite have the same leverage as straddling Lord Galvatron had, but the warlord didn't seem eager to throw him off once he'd recovered from the surprise. Cyclonus's vents stuttered to halt from a sensation much like surprise, only more thrilling. Rodimus got one hand free to wave frantically, and Cyclonus had to flatten his hands on the table to keep from reaching to catch it. "Shockstick!" the Prime called, wild and giddy.

"Cyclonus! What's this about a draft?" Lord Galvatron bellowed with anger approaching anticipation.

"I need a conductive lubricant!"

Cyclonus was having difficulty controlling himself. The internal turmoil created by the proceeds of the day had whipped into a new frenzy at the spectacle. All the pain was coming to a head, and his spark squeezed unbearably tight within his chest. There was something about the open interest on his lord's face, even as Lord Galvatron snarled up at Rodimus Prime. Cyclonus gasped desperately, trying to restart his vents, but they squeezed shut as his lord shouted in pain. The shockstick ignited the energon collected in tiny threads on the buckled surface of the table. The sight, the _sounds_ tingled through Cyclonus in a way he couldn't understand and flared on the undersides of his fingers. He wanted — needed — to — to touch. To tear the Prime off his lord and offer himself. To bare vital systems and open his programming and spark and all that he was to the lord of the cosmos.

"Ah, my lord," he started weakly, forcing his mouth to form words instead of the breathy whimper that wanted to come out, "I've done as much as I can. The final authorization must be yours, my lord. If you would only take a moment to — "

"You're getting better, Prime."

"You have no idea. More lubricant!"

Cyclonus faltered, and the words slurred into a low moan when his concentration broke. Pain had been consumed by the sheer building heat soaking through his internal structure at the moment, and he was having trouble focusing on anything but his lord's writhing. Ultra Magnus pegged him with a stylus thrown from across the — occupied — table and pointedly cleared his throat when the dazed Unicronian looked over at him. "Signature?" Cyclonus squeaked.

"Shut up, Cyclonus! Prime, you've wasted enough of my ti — "

"Scourge!"

"Huh?" Only First Aid didn't seem shocked by the Prime's newest request. The medic bustled over and hooked a foot around the chair before Scourge could do more than collect his dropped jaw from his lap. First Aid jerked his foot, taking the chair out from under the stunned Hunter and pushing with both hands on broad wings at the same time. Scourge yipped as he was dumped face-down onto the table.

Also onto Lord Galvatron, but, meh. Details.

Cyclonus was having trouble remembering basic functions. Like, say, ventilation. For some reason, automatic temperature control had failed and he was overheating rapidly.

Rodimus Prime rolled back into place as quickly as he'd pulled away, this time making a Scourge sandwich. Lord Galvatron seemed mildly confused to suddenly be face-to-face with his subordinate instead of enemy, but all the lubricant First Aid had been dumping on the fight kept either Decepticon from escaping as the Prime came down on top of them. And then the shockstick came back into play.

At full power, a shockstick was a tool of severe punishment for a single mech. Spread out through two mechs, through conductive lubricant and already-primed systems that had been rebuilt by a God of Chaos to register pain and pleasure as the same thing, it…wasn't exactly punishment.

Well, it was for Cyclonus, but that was a different sort of punishment. More of deprivation.

Scourge arched up against Rodimus as Lord Galvatron arched back against the table, creating a double-bow that met in a crackle of electricity and screaming. Light blew, sparking and hot, from their mouths and danced in white-edged shorts behind their optics. Scourge dug claws capable of actually piercing another Unicronian's armor deep into his lord's shoulders, and energon caught fire in an explosive burst of fire. "**Aaaa**_**argggh!**_" The shrieking started out a high squeal of strained metal being sheared and dipped lower as Rodimus reared up over them, tracing the shockstick between Scourge's trembling, wide-spread wings. By the time he reached Scourge's aft and the purple knee that had drawn up convulsively behind it, the cry had become the hollow boom of spark chambers grinding together. "_**Aaaahhhhhh **_**uh uh uh**_** aaah **_**uh**_**.**_"

Fire dripped in sluggish pink drops to the table, occasionally becoming a liquid torrent as Lord Galvatron's back hitched higher or Scourge's claws flexed in the wounds. Neither seemed to care that their armor crisped black and sooty, or that the entire room had stopped moving, stopped _thinking_, to stare and watch. Cyclonus had collapsed back in his chair, overcome and unable to stop the desperately needy shivers turning major joints to gelatin. Rodimus Prime smirked over the pair, tapping this way and that with his shockstick like the conductor of the galaxy's most riveting, dangerous, and positively perverse orchestra (Soundwave seemed to be keeping time, if his tapping foot was anything to go by).

Lord Galvatron surged up from the table, optics mad and crazed. "**PRIIII**_**IIIIME!**_" The medic helplessly rushed forward, hands fluttering uselessly, and Cyclonus looked up at his lord in awe. One powerful arm crushed Scourge to the mighty chest, and the other flung out and caught Rodimus Prime's waving baton-shockstick. Caught and _held_, the warlord's face twisting into a grimace of pleasure beyond pain, indefinable as either, and the Prime laughed in irrepressible joy back at him from over Scourge's bent head. The victorious cry of a hunting Sweep suddenly pierced every audio, and Lord Galvatron's bellow followed not a moment afterward.

They went down in a heap on the floor at Cyclonus' feet. He stared. They smoked gently.

A hand wavered upward, groping aimlessly at Cyclonus' closest leg. "He wants a stylus," the Prime said confidently from the bottom of the pile. A toneless grumble complained at the Prime's presumption. "Oh, sorry. He wants a stylus **and** you."

First Aid was checking readouts and making notations to one side, happily immersed in the aftermath of a plan well-done, and Scrapper and Hook were peering over his shoulder with evident approval. Soundwave seemed a little disappointed that the 'music' had finished. The assembled Decepticons and Autobots were paying their dues (Red Alert had apparently won the betting pool, which almost made up for the security deposit fiasco). Ultra Magnus came to kneel at the side of the heap with the finished first draft as Cyclonus handed his lord a stylus. It took him a moment to find one. For some reason, the one he'd been using had been rendered unusable because of being bitten in half. The Autobot second-in-command gave Cyclonus the draft, and he held it in place for his lord's, er, scrawl (Even for Lord Galvatron, that didn't bear much resemblance to an actual signature). Then Ultra Magnus managed to unbury enough of the Prime to sign in turn.

Preliminary negotiations were in place. The treaty was becoming a reality. A reality Cyclonus didn't understand and didn't really like, but for the moment, it was out of his hands. He surrendered to the hand tugging insistently on his leg and sank to the floor as Soundwave signaled Swindle to start looking through the draft for exploitable loopholes and Red Alert snared Smokescreen and Mirage to block with extreme prejudice any they happened to find.

"You don't seem to find any of this surprising," he said to his opposite number in the Autobot ranks as the second-in-command resumed his seat. It came out more questioning than accusatory, but Cyclonus didn't mind. It was hard to mind anything much when his lord had him by the antenna like this. It burned deliciously, his systems insisting it should hurt even as everything in him thrilled to belong to Lord Galvatron.

Ultra Magnus propped one elbow on the table and rested his chin on his hand. His expression was hard to read. "Yes. Well, it's been a long war."

The statement was difficult to understand. It was one of those statements that had a basis in something Cyclonus just didn't have the information or ability to process. A long war, a short war, an ending war — what did it mean? What else could there be in existence but war?

He didn't know what 'peace' was. He was fairly sure he wasn't going to like it. But, like the day itself, he wasn't sure he'd _dislike_ it, either.

Free will was a pain, but for a Unicronian, sometimes just having a choice was as good as it got.


	4. Words Unspoken

_Playing with Daniel; Galvatron, chains of neverending agony; Pulling off a miracle._

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><p><strong>[* * * * *]<strong>

**Title: **Words Unspoken

**Warning: ** References to interfacing.

**Rating: **PG

**Continuity:** G1, Season 3

**Characters:** Rodimus Prime, Daniel Witwicky

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **_Playing with Daniel__; __Galvatron, chains of neverending agony; Pulling off a miracle._

**[* * * * *]**

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><p>Some things in the universe remained constant.<p>

Kup remained the oldest, grouchiest source of balderdash this side of the cosmos. Sparkplug told stories of Autobot exploits that grew more expansive with every telling. Taxes were more difficult to file this year than the last.

The bright red automobile pulled up outside Daniel's home and beeped his horn, and Daniel opened the door with a grin. "Just a minute!"

"One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand…"

"Okay, five minutes!"

The human ducked back inside to grab fishing gear stuffed into a closet waiting for just this moment, and he dashed outside still tying one sneaker as the Autobot sing-songed the count, "Two hundred ninety-five one thousand, you're gonna be la~ate, Danny, two hundred ninety — "

"I'm here, I'm here! Sheesh." He hopped down the sidewalk and didn't even think to look. He knew the door was open and waiting. He slid in without thinking, the door closed, and it was as it always was. Just a boy and his car; just a car and his boy. It didn't matter that it had been months since they'd seen each other. It didn't matter that the boy was years too old to drop everything on a moment's notice, and the car was actually the Autobot Prime disguised as a Winnebago. For today, Daniel would leave the papers on his desk and let the phone ring unanswered. Rodimus Prime was tuning out any communication attempt that didn't have _"Galvatron's attacking!"_ as the first words. This was their time, grabbed out of nowhere, and they would take it because — and sadly, they knew this all too well — the universe would interrupt any scheduled time they made for each other.

Hot Rod or Rodimus Prime, Danny or Daniel, they would never change. If they looked a little more ridiculous every time, the two of them didn't care. They still used the old arts-n-crafts hard-shell carrier Spike Witwicky had given his son before leaving Earth with the Autobot resistance back in 2003. Various lures in fluorescent colors and fluffiness inhabited it, although they preferred the white-and-red ball-bobbers. The fishing poles were meant for children, simple sticks with fishing line, and that was good enough for them.

Daniel lived close to Autobot City, but not too close. Far enough away for them to find a gravel road that a Winnebago shouldn't have taken at 90 MPH, but close enough that the police didn't chase down brightly-colored cars that ignored speed limits. Rodimus shrieked like a little girl as pebbles _tink_ed off his windshield, and the man in his front seat hung onto the steering wheel to keep from bouncing up high enough to hit the cabin roof as all four of the Autobot's tires left the ground off the peak of one steep hilltop. Neither could remember the last time Daniel actually wore a seat belt inside him. If asked, the human wouldn't have been able to say why. Rodimus might have been able to fumble a passable excuse about the number of times being able to pitch Daniel clear during a fight had saved the human's life.

Truth was, they both just knew the safest place for Daniel to be was inside Rodimus Prime. Seatbelts were garnish on the cake of life: a nice thought, but unnecessary. Not for Roddy's Danny.

Rodimus snuck past the Autobots currently on patrol — who kindly heeded Red Alert's notice to _Not See_ their delinquent Prime — and made a (transparently obvious because of all the security cameras, but Red Alert looked the other way) break for the lake while Daniel hung one arm and his head out the window and whooped into the wind. When the road came to the boating ramp and dirt turn-about, the Prime hit the brakes and skidded his wide rear end in a donut. Daniel clutched his wheel with one hand and the dashboard with the other, yelling with excitement that had never ebbed. This would never change.

When they finally tired of donuts, or Rodimus got so dizzy he cut the corner too close and started to tilt over, the Autobot braked to a halt. "Heavy in the aft," Daniel started, but Rodimus dumped his passenger out and transformed, stretching with an exaggerated sigh.

Daniel kicked him in the foot repeatedly while the Prime did his best absent-minded Kup impression and pretended to forget where his tiny friend was. "Now, where did I put him..?" the Autobot leader mumbled, scratching his helm and studiously looking around at every spot except where Daniel stood.

"I'll put a wrench up your fat bumper, Roddy!"

"Not if you can't catch me!"

"You're on!"

They raced to find their fishing spot, Daniel's more agile sneakers versus Rodimus' larger stride. This time, the sucking mud at the edge of the lake won the battle, and the Autobot tumbled sidelong into the water. He turned just enough to make it a massive bellyflop. Daniel laughed himself off balance and acquired mud all over the seat of his pants when he sat down hard. Two golden spoiler tips surfaced, and a gurgled version of the _Jaws_ theme began from under the water. Daniel scrambled back to his feet and took off as the giant mutant Autobot 'shark' chased him. It would have been menacing if the soundtrack to their little chase scene didn't sound like Seaspray trying not to laugh: "Du-du, du-du, du-du-du-du-du-du-DU-DU-DU!"

"I win!" Daniel proclaimed, racing up the slope to the bank where they fished. A moment later, Rodimus Prime surged out of the water with a great big grin and even bigger wave of water. "…I lose," Daniel said, his voice the only dry thing currently about him.

"You betcha," Rodimus agreed.

It led naturally to more amiable bickering as Rodimus brought out the fishing gear and they began fumbling for squishy little worms in the dirt. All the while, they deliberately turned their backs on the distant hum of Autobot City and all associated responsibilities. Both of them had things they wanted to escape, and that was what this was for. Just a boy and his car; a car and his boy. No one else, and no pressures from war, or duty, or responsibilities that came from when one finally grew up. No matter what they looked like today, they were just themselves here: Danny and Roddy.

"You know, I remember this being a lot easier to do," Rodimus said, good-naturedly handing his bait-bobber to Daniel to get a worm attached.

"Uh-huh," Daniel humored him, ruthlessly impaling an earthworm and handing the mess back. "That's what Kup always says, anyway. Were Decepticons not such pansies in these memories of yours? Did the recruits respect you more?"

"Are you saying I'm old?"

"And heavy in the aft."

"Y'know, I do kind of feel like I've gotten bigger lately…"

They cast their lines out and got comfortable. Rodimus Prime propped himself up on his arms and crossed his legs, and Daniel, as ever, perched on his knee, leaning back against the Prime's chest. Back when they'd really been Danny and Hot Rod, not Daniel and Rodimus pretending, the ground hadn't been so far away. Rodimus had gotten quite a bit larger as a Prime. Then again, Daniel had been smaller back then. Kids grew up, human or not. The important thing was that they'd changed together, and that's what they remembered here and now.

They relaxed slowly, the pile of stubbornly unacknowledged things slipping away to be dealt with some other time. The silence smothered them in a damp wave of humid summer heat, as comfortable as an old blanket laundered to frayed edges and fond memories. The grass on the slope had never seen a lawn mower. It had recovered with time from the long-ago battle, growing more vigorously than ever before. The huge dirt divots from combat and the massive burnt scars from the grassfire had been covered by a tangled mat of sun-browned weeds that buzzed with life. The sounds were dulled by the heavy air, noisy but weirdly silent. Bees hummed among the wildflowers, and grasshoppers chirped. As the stillness lasted, only the red bobbers moving out on the lake, the birds returned to cheep and flit. They were mostly small birds with brown marks on their feathers, chasing insects and spiders and seeds. Daniel had once mentioned that he was curious what species they were, but neither Autobot nor human had looked them up.

Some mysteries only meant something until they were solved. Both man and mech treasured what little, innocent pieces of childhood ignorance they could hide here in this place. Maybe it was why they kept returning, holding onto their frozen, unchanging piece of the universe.

Just a boy and his car; a car and his boy. Roddy and Danny, fishing together.

"Roddy?"

"Hmm?" The Autobot had his head thrown back, a long blade of grass that seemed laughably short to someone his size stuck in the corner of his mouth. Like the best traditions, it made him look like an idiot.

Daniel was chewing on his own grass blade, and he tilted his head up to look up past the flame decals at his friend. "Why do you do it?"

If Rodimus knew what he was asking, he didn't seem to mind. But then, he didn't really know what his friend was asking. "Why do I do what, Danny? Because Springer doesn't have the negatives anymore, and I've got an alibi."

The human smiled involuntarily, but his face fell to more sober lines. "Why do you go back to Galvatron?"

The silence returned, no longer a comforting thing. It wasn't a tense thing, either, but it was more tangible. Instead of the comfortable lightness of temporary freedom, this silence had the fragile weight of ashes settling, waiting for a breath to disturb the smooth surface and smear everything grey. Rodimus' optics lit a dark, brooding blue, staring up at the sky like he searched for an answer. Daniel waited, staring up at his car, his friend, _his_ - and if he felt impatient or disappointed at the silence, he didn't show it. But then, he didn't really know what he was asking.

For all he thought he knew, he didn't know. There were things the Autobots didn't tell the humans. There were things Rodimus Prime couldn't tell Daniel Witwicky, even when Roddy wanted to include Danny. Even when Roddy really _needed_ Danny. Because Rodimus Prime and Roddy often had to be separate mechs, just as Danny the boy and Daniel Witwicky, Human Ambassador, had to be different people. Neither wanted to be, and they both needed each other with a sort of clinginess only outsiders realized was unusual. At the same time, they knew they had to put up that separation. It was part of their jobs. Just because both of them ducked out of their respective jobs today like Ferris Bueller dodging classes didn't mean that any secrets could be revealed. Rodimus knew that Daniel — humankind - kept secrets from him, and from the Autobots. Daniel also knew, as Ambassador, that the Autobots didn't tell humankind everything. Rodimus couldn't tell Daniel everything.

The reality of the Autobot-Decepticon treaty was one of those secrets. The two factions controlled two territories, Cybertron and Chaar. In exchange, the Autobot Prime frequently traveled into Decepticon, and therefore hostile, territory. That, the humans knew. They just didn't know exactly why.

Some mysteries would mean a lot when they were solved. Maybe it wouldn't mean that much to humankind as a whole, although the Autobots judged the species a little too immature to handle the truth yet, but to Daniel? Rodimus couldn't do that to his friend. He wanted to cling to the bits of innocence they had left. He wanted this sanctuary to last just a little longer.

But…Daniel had asked. _Danny_ had asked.

Rodimus Prime reeled in his fishing line slowly, sitting up just enough that he could look down easily at the human. Daniel looked back at him. It was odd to realize how the pressure to speak wasn't oppressive. If it had been anyone else waiting, Rodimus would have felt his stress levels start rising immediately.

Danny was waiting, but Roddy knew that if he didn't answer, there wouldn't be spiteful comments and bitter feelings. Maybe some hurt feelings, of course, but nothing like if Bluestreak or Jazz or Ms. Ellington from the Seattle Board of Governance had asked him this question. They would ask, not demand, but they wouldn't respond well to evasion. It was almost as if everyone else felt that they were entitled to Rodimus Prime and everything he was. A Prime was public property.

Danny didn't own Roddy. He just was there for him, and he'd asked something of him with no expectation but honesty. Rodimus Prime had known Springer and Arcee for millennia, yet it was to this human he sped when he had the chance. Of everything in the universe he could ask for, he wanted this place and this time with Daniel Witwicky to never end. There were so many things between Autobot and human that they'd never said. They'd saved each other's lives so often it'd become a running joke. They'd called each other at absurd hours for serious and sputteringly-silly reasons. They'd been irresponsible and utter children together, driving Kup up the wall as he tried to corral them both. The comparatively tiny human was a flash of light in the wider spectrum of a Cybertronian's life, but that light burned all the more brilliantly for its brevity.

So Rodimus looked out over the lake with its lack of witnesses, and the fishing rod was laid aside. Inside, Rodimus transformed as best he could, carefully folding himself up tight and neat like a bedsheet creased flat, and he tucked the Prime away into a storage closet in his mind. When he looked down at the human on his knee, an adult but still so _Danny_, it was Hot Rod looking out of somber optics.

"That's a difficult question," Roddy said. "Lemme think a second, okay?"

Danny squinted against the mid-afternoon, some of his friend's graveness infecting him. He bypassed the obvious comment on Roddy's difficulties thinking and just nodded. "It's okay."

No, it really wasn't. That was the problem, wasn't it? Roddy frowned in a mixture of sadness and determination as he sorted out what he didn't have to - but wanted to, and that made all the difference - explain. Humankind tended to like placing things into two categories: black or white, good or bad, friend or foe. It showed up especially in their propaganda. It wasn't always a bad thing, but it did lead to extremism. Introduce the possibility of the categories being wrong, or being artificially imposed, and suddenly supporters on both ends of the spectrum were left reeling. Sometimes, humans reacted to the shades of gray with violence instead of curiosity, condemnation instead of understanding.

For years, the categories had been clear-cut on Earth: Decepticon = bad, Autobot = good.

Recently, the separation between the two groups had narrowed. Blurred, even. Some erasure, a few iffy Autobots, a couple Decepticons who turned out be — not nice, precisely, but definitely not stone-cold killers. There had been traitors, defections, cooperation, hesitant co-existence, and now the treaty. Humankind was baffled, and Roddy didn't quite know how to explain that sometimes…well, sometimes, the bad guys were just doing the best they could with what had been forced on them.

Galvatron had been born into chains.

A flowery phrase to sum up a twisted being, and that right there was wrong, wasn't it? A mistaken beginning from the get-go. Nothing about Galvatron invited fancy terminology, and no euphemism could possibly convey the crazed tyrant. Break out the heavy-handed words, because only descriptions like blunt objects knocked the reality of the situation in.

Galvatron had not been born; he had been forged. Properly recycled metal was folded and heat-treated until every weakness was purged and all impurities were burnt out. The bubbles and flaws were pressed and smoothed and hammered until they disappeared. The slag was skimmed and cast aside. Only acceptable elements were taken from the crucible to use again.

Unicron had not recycled Megatron properly. It turned out that not even the Unmaker could skip that stage without consequences. The Autobots were only beginning to discover what those consequences were. They had the distinct feeling that they had never been supposed to do so. First Aid got a positively gleeful charge out of spiting Unicron's will every time he released a new system-wide announcement on the Unicronians' multitude of errors and how the Autobots should handle them.

Galvatron, however hard he appeared on the battlefield, was brittle in the way that uncured armor plating fresh out of the casting mold was: hit it wrong, and — unannealed — it shattered in a thousand pieces. His mind and body would have never survived so long if not for their Unicron-touched properties. Those defied physics. In fact, Unicron's touch made mockery of safe practices and perversions of natural law. Unicron had taken Megatron's dying body and remade him, mind and body. That did not mean that the Unmaker had done so with the intention of the result being any sort of finished product. There was no permanence in Unicron's work, nor any intention of stability. The Chaos Bringer had melted down Megatron's damage, not repaired it, and the pain had been rendered into Galvatron as deeply as power-lust and righteous fury.

Every joint and gear came from damaged material, and from there came the metaphorical chains. They weren't physical scars, but a neverending agony clawing through Galvatron's circuits. His body was an open wound that would not - _could never_ — heal.

It was no wonder he was mad. Even if his mind had been rebuilt correctly, the pain would have driven him to the brink eventually.

Understanding that didn't make Galvatron any less crazy, but it was harder to blindly blame the Unicronians for their behavior once the Autobots realized how ferociously driven they were by pain and inbuilt compulsion. It had taken longer for the Autobots to realize that the Unicronians were fighting the Unmaker's coercion. Even if the fight, er, manifested in strange ways.

This came out in slow, painstaking words. Roddy had never been that good with diplomacy, and he ended the explanation mutely looking down at the human with an unconsciously imploring expression on his face.

The human seemed to consider for an ominously long time. Eventually, as if carefully feeling out the words, Danny asked, "Fighting how?"

Roddy almost collapsed with a _whoosh_ of air; curiosity was a good sign! He'd done his level best to pick the right words, but as well as he knew Danny, humans surprised the Autobots on a near-daily basis. Danny had never reacted to unusual ideas with unreasonable anger, but…he was also Daniel Witwicky, Human Ambassador. Roddy couldn't always predict how that responsibility would make his friend react.

"Like…" His hands opened and closed on empty air, searching for the right way to put into words what most of the Autobots knew by observation and still couldn't articulate without it sounding patently ridiculous. "Okay, so," Roddy started at last, "First Aid says that the urge to destroy is code-deep in all of them. I mean, down to the struts. Peace isn't supposed to something they can even **think**. They shouldn't be able to do more than kill. But you know that if the Sweeps capture me, the first thing they're going to do is make sure I don't die. Right?"

Brown eyes blinked, going from conservative consideration to bafflement in a moment, because it had been so long since Daniel worried about Rodimus Prime going up against Scourge or the Sweeps that it seemed a little off to even think about it anymore. Which was the point, and Daniel had to stop and think about why exactly he _wasn't_ worried. "Well, yeah. I think #3's even gotten some medical training from Hook lately." And once he said that, the sheer oddity stood out like a red flag. Why would a _Sweep_ get medical training?

"Yep," Roddy confirmed. "And lemme tell you, it is seriously nerve-wracking getting field repairs on your fuel pump from a Sweep. Good bedside manner, though. Said he wouldn't gut me if I didn't move."

"When did that happen?"

"Few months ago. Didn't I tell you about it?" Daniel was giving him a frankly angry look for leaving out that bit of vital information, and the Autobot shrugged uncomfortably. "Computron drop-kicked Galvatron into a crater a minute later, and I was busy chasing the Predacons down for the rest of the day. I think you were busy with the election results that week?" He gave his friend his best puppy optics, hoping for forgiveness. "It's not like I was in any danger. The Decepticons won't let me die."

Daniel's glare promised that there would be more talking later, but he nodded almost reluctantly. The next words pushed through like an epiphany: "Because Galvatron wants you for himself."

"Yeah?" Roddy's helm cocked in open challenge, daring him to follow that epiphany to wherever it led, however strange unprepared humankind might find it. "You know that for sure?"

"Yeeeaah." The word dragged out, and Daniel's eyes were narrowing as he thought. If Unicron had made his heralds to be mindless killers, the Sweeps should far more menacing than they were. But they weren't. They were a screeching, blood-thirsty swarm of flyers that retreated when confronted by good defensive tactics. Two of them regularly bought pallets of birdseed from Cost Co. They'd apparently pushed one of their smarter members into rudimentary field repair training, too. "That's…kinda weird, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is." Roddy shifted his seat, and the birds stopped chirping for a second. All that could be heard was the soft slough of wind over the grass, but the insects chimed in when the Autobot stopped moving. "What about Cyclonus? He's had me down and out a few times, and you've seen what happens."

"You're not dead yet."

"Exactly!"

It really was weird the more Daniel thought about it, and not just because Cyclonus was a Unicronian. _Decepticons_ didn't show mercy. Decepticons didn't stop pounding on someone in order to tie him up like a birthday present, especially when he was the enemies' leader. Daniel had actually seen Scourge and the Sweeps plough into the Prime in the middle of pitched battle, and then lift off like a flock of startled birds when they had him helplessly pinned. It wasn't as if they couldn't kill him; it was as if the killing blow physically repelled them. Cyclonus would haul Rodimus into the air like an eagle carrying home prey, but if confronted by a defensive line of Autobots, he'd choose to drop the Prime in order to fight rather than kill him and flee. Also, everyone knew that the best way to distract Galvatron from anything — beating on his own troops, shooting at the Autobots, trying to blow up a planet — was to point in Rodimus Prime's general direction.

Daniel had seen it on the news. Better yet, he'd witnessed it happen in person. He'd stood there on the battlefield catcalling at Galvatron that Rodimus was over _that-a-way_, punching Soundwave in the faceplates. If the highest priority Unicron had programmed into his heralds had been destruction, why the drop-everything obsession with Rodimus? For that matter, how did that factor into Galvatron's various…peculiarities?

Galvatron had possessiveness issues. He'd been known to grab Cyclonus by the antenna and interface with him in full view of the galaxy if he thought — for whatever insane reason, because _everyone_ knew that Cyclonus would never do so — that his second-in-command was looking at someone else. Scourge and his Sweeps would snap to attention and scramble into ranks at their leader's back if the warlord so much as grunted in a certain way. Galvatron regarded other people as mobile bits of scenery, and his overbearing dominance over them was a natural extension since he ruled the universe. The other Unicronians, in turn, had responded by being fiercely possessive of their particular 'bits of universe' as pertaining to him. They would go through anyone who got in their way to remain at his side or at his back, and Primus help any poor Decepticon currently occupying the position they favored. It was kind of funny watching the Decepticons dive for cover when Galvatron twitched or grimaced, paranoid optics flicking around for _his_ troops.

Yet the crazed warlord bent on universal dominion let his bitter rival escape again and again. Not easily, and definitely not without injury, but Rodimus Prime had faced down Galvatron more times than should have been possible. More importantly, he'd faced down _all_ of the Unicronians. Unicronians who, according to First Aid - and Daniel had every faith in First Aid's abilities as a medic - couldn't help being murderous. They couldn't even contemplate living any other way, something that boggled Daniel's mind.

Actually, he was kind of all-around boggled right now.

In the human's defense, he'd grown up knowing that Galvatron regarded kicking Rodimus' aft around as a personal pastime. It had honestly never occurred to him to wonder why the Decepticon leader got psychotically huffy if one of the other Decepticons dared damage the Autobot leader. And he wasn't a child anymore; while Danny had once thought it was Roddy's skill and the fairness of the universe that let the Autobots win again and again, Daniel knew now that, realistically, Galvatron was physically more powerful. More powerful, more inclined to act first and think later, and not just prepared to but anticipating the kill. Yet Rodimus Prime still lived.

"Okay." He took a deep breath to steady himself, but his thoughts were still skittering about erratically. "Okay. Cyclonus and Scourge don't kill you when they can. I can sort of understand that, because they'll do anything Galvatron says — "

"First Aid says they shouldn't even be doing that."

"What, really?" Daniel's thoughts stumbled to a halt on that, because the idea of Cyclonus and Scourge disobeying Galvatron was just wrong. "Why not?"

"'Emotional attachments with positive associations are anathema to Unicronian design, causing psychosomatic symptoms,'" Roddy recited in a credible Perceptor impression, which he dropped in order to give his friend a sad interpretation: "Loyalty is a positive emotion, at least far as the Unicronians take it, and it hurts them. A lot, if First Aid's right."

"He is," Daniel said automatically, because Autobots and allies had their own kind of loyalty. Once he said it, however, Daniel could follow the logic. He'd grown up watching Galvatron's helm trail fireworks while fighting the Prime, after all. "The sparking thing?"

Roddy nodded. "Sweep #3 looked like someone was setting off flashbombs under his armor while he was working on me. They're just not made to do anything but destroy."

"But they are."

"They're trying." Roddy winced a bit. "Now that we know what we're seeing, some of us have our own sympathetic reactions. It was hard enough sending Groove into battle before we realized that just holding back from a killing blow causes Scourge's body to punish him." The Autobot pacifist had broken down in the arms of the other Protectobots after that battle, cringing because he hadn't needed to shoot a gun in order to hurt someone. What made it worse was that having the cease-fire in effect hadn't stopped the Unicronians' pain, and Rodimus had banned Groove from Decepticon contact for the foreseeable future.

"I…don't get it. I get that Unicron's an evil fragger," Daniel rushed to assure his friend, "but what does that have to do with the treaty? What does that have to do with **you?**" Because that was his real concern. Rodimus Prime went off into enemy territory far, far too often for comfort, and just because Galvatron hadn't killed him yet didn't mean it wouldn't happen.

"Ah. Um."

"**Rod**dy…"

"You sound like your mother when you do that," Rodimus muttered, reminded of several confessions — and promises — Daniel's mother had wrung out of him over the years as it became obvious that nothing but a lobotomy was going to separate Autobot and human child.

Daniel radiated smugness. "Who do you think I learned it from?" Roddy gave him a sour look. "Mom does the off-world diplomacy. I have to deal with the home team, and I had to learn how to do it from someone, didn't I? And it pays off." He pretended to buff his nails on his shift. "Politicians the world over don't know how to deal with my feminine wiles."

"…that sentence was all kinds of wrong." Amused despite himself, the Autobot gave him a wide-opticked look of fascination. "Teach me thy ways, oh swami!"

"First off, we'll get you a dress. Second, and this is most important," the human looked both ways in exaggerated concern for eavesdroppers, and Roddy leant down when beckoned, "I'll teach you how to not evade the subject," Daniel stage-whispered.

Ouch. Point scored.

Roddy sat back up straight with a tired laugh. "Okay, okay, you got me. Just bear with me, okay? It's not really something that I talk about a lot."

"Embarrassing?" What could possibly embarrass Roddy in front of Danny after all this time?

Clear blue optics clouded slightly, glancing away. "Not really, but it's hard to put into words. Most of the time, nobody talks about it to, well, spare my feelings." He flashed a slightly desperate grin at his friend, because it was either smile or scowl, and Danny didn't deserve misplaced frustration. It wasn't the human's fault that Roddy wasn't happy.

After a few seconds of studying the Autobot's discomfort, Danny turned to jiggle his fishing pole. When he did speak, it was carefully not an accusation. "Does this have to do with why Jazz has been running most of the Autobot City meetings lately?"

Trust the Human Ambassador to pick out a relevant and potentially problematic issue. "We weren't trying to cut Earth out of the loop!" Roddy said, then flinched because of course he sounded defensive. "He's perfectly capable of acting as a city commander, and nobody knows Earth politics better than him these days." Still too defensive, and it sounded like Roddy was trying to make excuses. Daniel still wasn't looking at him. "He was due a promotion, and Ultra Magnus is needed on Cybertron. It's not like we're shoveling Earth off on someone unprepared — " Oo, wrong word choice? "He wanted to stay on Earth, and he's good with people," Rodimus finally said bluntly. "We decided to give him a trial period, and I'm pretty sure the promotion will be permanent. You'd have been notified when it became official."

"I know he'll do a good job," Daniel said quietly. "Jazz is Jazz. If he's still settling into the position, I can even understand why the promotion hasn't been announced. I'm just wondering why you're not in command anymore."

"I'm in command!" Roddy said, instantly defensive, but he deflated not a second later. "Sorry, didn't mean to snap."

"S'okay."

"I'm still Prime."

"I know." Daniel watched the bobbin float, waiting to tempt a fish into biting. "I also know you haven't been governing Cybertron since Ultra Magnus went back. At the time, you said he was in a better position to judge what needed to be done, since you were needed here on Earth." At his back and under him, Rodimus' systems were cycling in a steady rumble that was more felt than heard. In Daniel's experience, this particular rhythm meant the Autobot was nervous. "Now Jazz is in charge of Autobot City. Are you going to take over command on Cybertron?"

The rumble became briefly audible, but it dropped a moment later. "No," Roddy admitted, and there was a weary depression in that admittance. Daniel leaned back against him, offering silent support. As always. And, as always, it was the little gesture that helped where all the reassuring words and aft-kicking the other Autobots gave did nothing but depress him further. "I'm never going to be Optimus Prime," Roddy said finally, and it was astonishingly painful to say aloud. "I tried the diplomacy thing. I tried being a negotiator, and I tried sitting behind a desk. I'm just no good at it. Don't," he cut Daniel off. "If it weren't you as ambassador, you know I'd have screwed up the Autobot-Earth alliance ten times over by being me. The uproar over the moon territories was bad enough, but multiply that by every new species we meet and every time there's a conflict over stupid building codes back on Cybertron. For pity's sake, two Autobots started bickering over noise regulations back at the base here last week, and I somehow turned it into a large-scale brawl in the halls by opening my mouth. You **know** it!"

"You're not that bad," Daniel started, but the Autobot cut him off.

"I am! Kup keeps saying I'll outgrow it, but c'mon! Truth is, I'm not made for administration. I'm not made for government." He threw up his hands. "Give me a battle, and I'll learn tactics and strategy. I can cite the stats on every soldier in the Autobot ranks, because **I learned**. Ask me why the Harquins refuse to sign the latest draft of the trading agreement with Cybertron, and I haven't got the slightest notion of where to even start looking. And that's after months of poring over that blasted document, paragraph by paragraph." He slumped, looking directly down at the human sitting against him. "I was doing so bad with the Pafyno ambassador that I went to First Aid because I thought maybe there was something wrong with my processor."

"Is there?" Danny asked cautiously, almost afraid but a tiny bit hopeful as well.

"No." The hope had been noticed, but Roddy only shook his head. It wasn't anyone's fault that Rodimus could never be Optimus, and there wasn't any point in getting angry over it. "Give me filework or an ambassador, and I'm hopeless. Give me a fight with Galvatron, and I'm the only one who can predict what he'll do. It's like the Matrix chose me to be Galvatron's nemesis, not the leader of the Autobots."

One hand had pressed to Rodimus' chest without Danny even being aware of it, trying to offer anything to help the leaden weariness in the Autobot's voice. "Hey, Jazz is okay. Ultra Magnus has been running Cybertron unofficially for ages anyway. The Autobots can handle you not being a great paper-pusher, but I don't think any of us could handle Galvatron without you."

"Yeah, I know," Roddy said, his smile wry and self-directed. "That's what Ultra Magnus said when he promoted Jazz."

"…he didn't even ask you?"

"Ahhh, well, I was busy at the time. Er, handling Galvatron. For, like, the ninth time in a week." Rodimus fidgeted as his friend gave him an incredulous, then outright suspicious look. "Alright, so, okay, I went to First Aid? And First Aid did look at my processors, and he kinda compared them to my processors before I got Primeified — "

"That's not a word!"

"Perceptor said it first!"

"So what? Perceptor makes up more words than Star Trek engineers!"

"Whatever. You're just sore you didn't think of it first."

"Maybe."

"Anyway," Rodimus dragged them back on track, "he did a comparison, and in the middle of running a diagnostic, Galvatron hit Phoenix with that scorcher ray thing."

"The wha — oh, yeah. Okay, I remember." Hitting Phoenix, Arizona, with an intense ray of heat in the middle of summer had gone fairly unnoticed. That Decepticon plot obviously hadn't been fully thought through.

"Right. Well, turns out that my battle computer goes all '_Hulk smash!_' when Galvatron's involved."

"It gets big, green, and angry?" Danny asked slowly, looking askance.

Roddy smirked. "It defies the laws of physics by actually getting bigger and drawing energy from nowhere. Not really 'nowhere,'" he corrected himself when his friend only stared up at him. "The Matrix connects directly to my CPU, contributes the extra mass and energy, and then reabsorbs it all after the crisis is over. It, uh, literally changes me into a Galvatron-fighting machine," he said, watching Daniel uneasily. The human's hand on his chest plate had clenched into a fist. "It doesn't do scrap-all when I'm trying to read a report, though, so Perceptor's theory is that — "

"You're not a weapon!" Daniel burst out, and Roddy's hands flew up to hover uncertainly as the much smaller man thumped him with a fist. The man was aiming for the Matrix in his chest, but it felt like an attack. "They can't just prop you up, call you Prime, and then shuffle you off to fight without — without — " The words wouldn't come, but it was so _unfair!_ Ultra Magnus and Jazz got the responsibility and authority, but Rodimus was the one the Matrix had picked! Rodimus was the one risking his life over and over again, and they were going to make him do it without letting him lead! A puppet leader instead of a respected, honored Prime!

But that was a child's belief in a fair universe, and Daniel had grown up. He knew what Perceptor's theory was, and he hit Rodimus chest plate again in defiance of the Matrix. Why would the Matrix of Leadership choose someone to be the sacrificial lamb? Why Hot Rod? "They can't just use you like that," he forced out at last, dredging the words out of bitterness, and, despite himself, added, "It's not fair."

"I am a weapon," Rodimus Prime said gently, and his hovering hands closed in to hold his friend. Two fingers pinched the forgotten fishing rod and set it beside the fuming man, and then the Autobot just held him. "The Matrix remade me to do a job that needs to be done. It's not the job that Optimus Prime had to do, but Prime led in war. There couldn't be different heads of state in his time because we didn't have states to head. We had an Autobot army that needed a definite leader. Now we have a galaxy with peace and war side-by-side, and the Matrix chose me for the side of war, because without me…" He hesitated, and in his hands, Daniel was listening. "Without me fighting, there wouldn't be a chance for peace. But that doesn't make me a peacetime leader."

"Do you know why I don't kill Galvatron?" the Autobot said suddenly, and Daniel blinked at the sudden subject jump. "I could, you know."

"You're an Autobot. Autobots don't kill," Daniel said, voice a little hoarse.

Blue optics looked at him solemnly. "We try not to kill. There's a difference. With all the trouble he's caused over the years, don't you think I'd risked traumatizing Bluestreak in order to put a sniper shot through Galvatron's head? Put him down, quick and easy."

"I guess…it occurred to me," the human thought aloud, "but Optimus tried that with Megatron a few times. It never worked."

"Megatron had experience, and Soundwave and a score of loyalists to defend him. Galvatron has less caution and skill than Megatron." Brute force, not subtly, was Galvatron's way. Rodimus opened his hands, letting the human get comfortable against him again. "Galvatron has complete control of the Decepticons, Danny. Megatron was always fighting sub-sects and dealing with internal politics to keep his position, but when Unicron attacked Cybertron, a lot of the Decepticon dissenters died. Galvatron's the strongest Decepticon left, and with Cyclonus and Scourge backing him, none of the remaining Decepticons dare step out of line. As long as Galvatron's alive, nobody more competent or," he grinned cheekily, "more threatening can take power. He's too possessive and paranoid to allow dissenters in the ranks."

Vividly remembering Octane and Blitzwing, Daniel nodded. "Tell me about it."

"We always knew that. So we haven't tried to assassinate Galvatron, even when we had the opportunity. The Decepticons had Chaar, and we had Earth and Cybertron, and the stalemate was going on and on because we couldn't think of a way to stop Galvatron without splintering the Decepticons off into even worse independent groups who might find someone to restart the war sometime later when we're not expecting it." The fishing rod was picked up, and Roddy idly wound the fishing line around the fingers of his right hand. The thin line glittered in the mid-afternoon sun, eventually twining around the Autobot's fingers like a web, and Roddy carefully flexed his fingers. "All the while, we're all wondering why even a crazy person couldn't see a losing battle when he was fighting it. It just didn't make sense that Galvatron would keep fighting, right? And then one day, First Aid got his hands on some scans from the Constructicons, and we find out that it's not logic, and it's not insanity, and it's not even what anyone **wants** so much as what Unicron is **making them do**."

Danny eyed the somewhat sheepish look on the Prime's face and sighed. "I'm going to make a guess here. You got an idea?"

"Uh-huh."

"And…it led to this treaty. Which shouldn't be possible, according to what you say First Aid said."

"Uh-huh." Rodimus coughed, unnecessarily clearing his intakes. "Galvatron's always been fixated on me. I just found a way to, uhh um, 'encourage' that fixation. I think you'd call it — well — " He ducked his head, sheepishness dipping into a kind of shamefaced silliness, "S&M?"

"Sado-masochism." Daniel's voice was so very flat. "Oh, I can't wait to hear this."

"All of Galvatron's bonds of loyalty and — so the theory goes! — affection are directly linked to physical and mental pain," Roddy rushed to explain. "I wasn't thinking about that, not really, but I had an idea and knew what I had to do, and First Aid was able to confirm later that the Matrix was definitely involved in my decision but that was later after — yeah." A smile was trying to pull on the Prime's lips, but Roddy wouldn't look down at the human. "We had indirect evidence that the subcommanders were all willing to discuss peace, but none of the Decepticons could risk saying anything to Galvatron, and Galvatron…he doesn't even really comprehend the concept, much less grasp how it comes about. But he does know how to chase me, and once I started encouraging his attention instead of, y'know, treating it like war, he started following where I led. Sort of. It's less of a leadership thing than a distraction. Unicron ingrained him with the need to conquer, but it was actually fairly easy to figure out how to keep him happy once I started trying. He likes challenges. He always needs a fight. Everything has to be about dominance and submission, or he just doesn't understand it. He - " There was a beat of hesitation, because every time Rodimus said it, he felt like an arrogant glitch. Matrix bearer or not, it seemed snobbish. "He sees everything from a different angle, and I think I'm the only one who really gets how to interpret that into our terms."

"Look." Rodimus held up his tangled hand, bending one finger so that the others had to follow, pulled by the fishing line. "When Galvatron's happy, he's not off killing things and is, ah, amendable to agreements, even if he doesn't quite get what the agreements are about, other than that they make me happy. Once I got him attached," the thumb moved, and the forefinger followed naturally, "he wouldn't let go. He's always been obsessed with me, but now it's become stronger. I'm somewhere between rival, equal, and some kind of cherished pet. He hates me as much as he wants me, and he's got a weird sense of concern for my well-being that's like…watching for battle damage even as he causes it." He paused, confused by his own awkward explanation, and one of Daniel's eyebrows had hitched to his hairline. "Uh, right. Since he's attached, Scourge and Cyclonus tolerate me." The middle and ring finger followed the forefinger, wrapped closely together with fishing line. "If he's in control and busy on Chaar pursuing me in every way possible, Ultra Magnus and the Decepticon subcommanders can actually negotiate boundaries and treaties. And since he's still rules the Decepticons," Rodimus' pinkie finger followed after the strongest three fingers, "none of them can step out of line without him blasting them into next week for defying him. All because I," the thumb waggled, linked more loosely to the rest of the hand but still entangled, "got involved."

"And because I'm involved," the thumb waggled again, the forefinger moving just slightly to follow, "the other Autobots," Rodimus' other hand rose to present its open palm to Daniel, "are free to be at peace."

The human stared into his open palm as if seeking meaning there. As if looking for truth. Maybe Smokescreen had been right to judge humankind too immature to know the truth about the treaty yet, but Rodimus Prime didn't want to think that about Earth. Roddy didn't want to know that about Danny.

He wanted it to be okay. He wanted the wordless acceptance he got from Sunstreaker and Sideswipe when they were redirected from bodyguarding him to taking up the same duty at Jazz's side. He wanted the punch to the shoulder from Springer, and the soft, "Good luck," from Arcee when Cyclonus met Sky Lynx at the Chaar/Cybertron space boundary. He wanted First Aid's absolute assurance that of course this is what he was meant to be doing. He wanted Daniel's brown eyes to hold that same confidence as the Autobots had, because they knew that a Prime didn't have to hold an administrative position to protect and lead them.

Daniel's slightly damp hand reached out and touched the Autobot's huge hand. "How long will it last, Roddy? How long before Galvatron gets bored, or until Sweep #3 can't fix your fuel pump? I've seen Galvatron fight. The only reason he hasn't killed you is because you fight back. What happens when you don't fight back enough one day? What happens if he can't take the pain and decided to kill you after all?" Solemn brown eyes turned up to blue optics, and something strained in Rodimus' chest broke like sunlight over the horizon to see the concern there. "You only have to be unlucky once, and then Unicron wins after all."

"Ah, funny you should say that," Roddy said, and if his voice had gone high and relieved, who could blame him? "First Aid thinks that the Matrix is still fighting Unicron. It was never this active when Optimus was fighting Megatron, and it flares every time I'm around Galvatron. I mean, **every** time. I didn't think that was odd until I mentioned it, and suddenly I had an entire meeting hall gaping at me like I'd taken the Matrix out and waved it at them." Perceptor and First Aid had practically tackled him in his chair, too, and the end result of _that_ examination had led to far more enthusiastic cooperation among the Autobots with Operation: Distract Galvatron. "With the amount of energy it's putting out, we think it's actually using me to try and fix the Unicronians."

"So the more you're around Galvatron, eventually…" Daniel murmured. For a second, he seemed lost in thought. Then he snatched his hand back from Rodimus' like it had burnt him and gave the Prime the evil eye. "Is this an Autobot televangelist thing? Because if you start trying to heal people with the power of the Matrix — no, don't you dare! No no no — "

Too late; laughing, Rodimus had already scooped up his friend and risen to his feet. One hand held Daniel to his chest while he dramatically raised his fishing line-tangled hand to the sky. "By the power of the Matriiiiiiiiiiiix!" he shouted, doing a credible imitation of He-Man.

Daniel kicked his legs in the air and couldn't help but laugh. "Metroplex is not Castle Greyskull!"

"Hmm." This was given due consideration. "Autobots, Autobots, Autobots..?"

"**Hooooooo~o!**" echoed across the lake, startling birds into flight and crickets into dead silence.

Autobot and human collapsed laughing on the grass, tension finally beaten back. The jelly-gut feeling of relief seemed to be mutual, and it felt like something between them had just dissolved away. Rodimus laid out flat, spoiler half-buried in the thick weeds, and Daniel slid off his chest to walk out along his arm, then slide off the elbow joint onto the ground. Half-watching the clouds, half-watching his friend, Rodimus obligingly lifted his hand when Danny's searching turned up the other fishing rod under it. The man picked the line free of the simple rod, sitting down with his back to Roddy's wrist as he worked.

"What'd you think of Blaster's last concert?"

"Meh, not my style of music. Too loud and wild."

"Did they have better tunes back in your day?"

"Are you calling me old?"

"Of course not, granddad."

"See if I let you on my lawn ever again…"

They bickered back and forth, here and there, even as Daniel got up to walk around Rodimus' head — deliberately stomping on the half-buried spoiler — to his other side. The Autobot rolled his head to follow his progress, watching the human wade through the grass out to Rodimus' hand. It was still tied up with its illustrative web of fishing line. Daniel gave the four fingers a look of scant favor and began, while still talking with Roddy about how Metroplex used to transform the entry ramp so that, yes, he had in fact walked uphill both ways, to wrap the thumb with a new length of fishing line. Rodimus' voice faltered.

It failed completely when the man tied the other end around his own waist.

Brown eyes met blue optics, wide and full of things unsaid. Danny smiled; a little sad, a little resigned, but still _Danny._ A boy with his car. A car with his boy. No matter what they looked like today, no matter what they did tomorrow.

And when Danny took an experimental step, of course Roddy followed.


End file.
